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Rumsfeld Rules of Engagement Allowing 30 Innocent Civilian Murders for Every One High Value Target
God's reasoning is in inverse proportion to the Pentagon's. Then with the gift of God's son Jesus, the whole calculus of war is subtracted. "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Mt 5:44.
Michael McCarthy, Pax Vobiscum
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Gary Kohls
“…a former targeting expert who'd worked for the Pentagon in the initial "Shock and
Awe" campaign said (on National Public Radio’s “This American Life”) that the threshold ratio not to be exceeded was 30 civilians to be killed in order to execute one high value target.1
“There you have it--the morally callous thinking that is prohibited by the principles of our Christian faith. Decapitate the leadership to end the war sooner, despite "taking out" innocents at the same time. The concept of "collateral damage" has been invented to obfuscate the fact of the certain unavoidable deaths of great numbers of civilians in all of these wars fought in population centers, large and small.
“In Afghanistan / Pakistan this has been one of the major issues in the conduct of the war, with many innocents being killed in bombings and raids. Our armed forces are given woefully insufficient information on who is friend and who is foe, and more enemies are being created daily as more civilians die in Predator drone attacks and special forces missions. We might sometimes "get our man" but the local community is more deeply turned against us.
" [Classified] documents were posted by WikiLeaks, an organization dedicated to public disclosure, shortly before the Afghan government said (Monday, 7-26-10] that "up to" 52 Afghan civilians have been killed in a coalition rocket attack on a village in southern Helmand province [last week]." 2 The Afghan government is using the 90,000 pages to further their persistent demands, over the past 9 years of U.S. occupation, that civilians be protected.
“The ratio of 30 innocents that can be sacrificed for 1 bad insurgent, has not changed, to my knowledge, since instituted by Donald Rumsfeld’s Dept. of Defense--no public report of any alteration in these rules of engagement. Contrast these numbers with the dialogue between Abraham and God in last Sunday's Old Testament reading. [Gen 18:20-32] Abraham bargains for mercy with God – Sodom & Gomorrah are to be destroyed because of their tremendous evil. But will God destroy the innocent with the guilty? Would God spare the whole evil city if only 50 just individuals are found? The bargaining continues by tens down to 10, and God agrees. If only 10 innocent are found then a whole city of evil-doers survives.
“God's reasoning is in inverse proportion to the Pentagon's. Then with the gift of God's son Jesus, the whole calculus of war is subtracted. "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." Mt 5:44.”
1 At 21 minutes into This American Life, Act 1, Mark Velasco tells his story of being a targeter for the Pentagon. [This is the only place in the media I've seen this discussed--worth listening to the whole program]: Stream the story at:
<http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/300/Whats-In-A-Number>
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